Quite why we decided to come away on the busy first Saturday of the school term I don’t recall now but Heathrow was predictably busy with a long snaking queue to get through to security. However, once at security itself, there were no queues at all which was very odd. I have no idea where all the people went but I thank them for disappearing. We also dodged a couple of other bullets as BA had been canceling some European flights after another IT failure and people were returning to the UK to long queues due to the automated passport dates not working.
Rather strangely there weren’t any people at Berlin airport either meaning that we sailed through passport control and were out quickly after landing. Here, our next challenge began – finding the right train to take us to the centre of Berlin and our hotel.
Before coming out here we had done some research and the one thing that Helen and I were concerned about was how we were going to get from the airport to the hotel. The train was the most cost effective route (€4 per person) but there had been some confusion over the train we needed to get. We found the one we thought it was, the S9, and managed to get tickets and onto this without too much drama. Three stops later everyone was getting off which was odd as this was way too soon in the journey. Initially, we couldn’t work out why until someone kindly explained that we had to change trains – this one seemed to be a sort of shuttle between the airport and this stop. It was then a straight run to Friedrichstraße station. On exiting we were able to see our hotel so it was a short walk there. Our room has lovely views of both the train track and station! You will recall that I am an avid train spotter so this was just perfect!
The Gate and the Garden
Not wanting to miss out on the beautiful weather we dropped the bags and headed straight out to explore making our way to the Brandenburg Gate. It is an iconic view spoilt somewhat but the road on one side and that we had to share with a large number of people. This included a small demonstration about what I couldn’t work out. I have seen this before where people choose to go out and demonstrate in a touristy area and I wonder what the point is. Unless you are protesting about the tourists themselves you’re wasting your time as they’re not your audience.
Just across the aforementioned road is the Tiergarten a huge park (520 acres to be precise) it was very pleasant to walk along its tree lined paths out of the bright sunshine. Given its size we could only mange a tiny fraction of it so I am sure we will return again.
A Meal of Traditional German Fare
Selecting where to eat abroad is always a bit of a challenge as you wrestle with the language and not knowing the quality of places. It is much easier these days in that you can get somewhat of an idea through online reviews but that only takes you so far.
We’d selected Zur Gerichtslaube as it had both good reviews and offered traditional German food – the image below will give you a very good idea of what we had and the menu made much use of the word “hearty”. Had we known what the main course were going to be like we probably wouldn’t have also ordered starters!
A good start to the break. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Actually I do as I am writing this a few days late but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see!
